Key To My Heart
by fioleeforeverlove
Summary: Unlock your heart and the rest will follow. Fionna is used to taking care of herself. But now that she is living with her sister, she's got her own room, she's going to a good school and her future looks bright. Plus there is an adorable boy next door. Can Fionna learn to open her heart and let him in? DISCLAIMER:I DO NOT OWN LOCK AND KEY AND ADVENTURE TIME! Rated T for use of drug
1. Introduction

"And Finally," Mono said as he pushed the door open, "we come to the main event. Your room."

I was braced for pink. Ruffles or quilting, or maybe even applique. Which was probably kind of unfair, but then again, I didn't know my sister anymore, much less her decorating style. With total strangers, it had always been my policy to expect the worst. Usually they - and those that you knew best, infact for the matter - did not disappoint.

Instead, the first thing I saw was green. A large, high window on the other side of which were tall trees separating the huge backyard from that of the house that backed up to it. Everything was big about where my sister and her husband, Mono, lived- from the himes to the cars to the stone fence you saw first thing when you pulled into the neighborhood itself, made up of boulders that looked too enormous to ever be moved. It was like Stonehenge, but suburban. So wierd.

It was only as I thought this that I realised we were all still standing in the hallway, backed up like a traffic jam. At some point Mono, who had been leading this little tour, had stepped aside, leaving me in the doorway. Clearly, they wanted me to step in first. So I did.

The room was, yes, big, with cream-colored were three other windows beneath the big one I'd first seen, although they each were covered with thin venetian blinds. To the right, I saw a double bed with a yellow comforter with matching pillows, a white blanket folded over the foot. There was a small desk, too, a chair tucked under it. The ceiling slanted on either side, meeting in a flat strip in the middle, where a square skylight, also covered with a venetian blind- a little square one, clearly costom made to fit. It was so matchy-matchy and odd that for a moment, I found myself just staring up at it, as if this was actually the weirdest thing about the day.

"So you've got your own bathroom," Mono said, stepping around me, his feet making soft thuds on the carpet, which was of course spotless. In fact, the whole room smelled like paint and new carpet, just like the rest of the house. I wondered how long ago they had moved in - a month, six months? "Right through this door. And the closet is in here, too. Weird, right? Ours is the same way. When we were building, Cake claimed it meant she would get ready faster. A theory that has yet to be proved out, I might add."

Then he smiled at me, and I tried to force a smile back. Who was the odd creature, my brother-in-law-a term that seemed oddly fitting, consider the circumstances-in his mountain-bike T-shirt, jeans, and funky expensive sneakers, cracking jokes in an obvious effort to ease the tention of an incredibly akward situation? I had no idea, other than he had to be the very last person I would have expected to end up with my sister, who was so uptight she wasn't even pretending to smile at his attempts. At least I was trying.

Not Cake. She was just standing in the doorway, barely over the threshold, arms crossed over her chest. She had on a sleeveless sweater - even though it was mid-October, the house was beyond cozy, almost hot - and I could see the definition of her biceps and triceps, every muscle seemingly tensed, the same way they had been when she'd walked into the meeting room at Poplar House two hours earlier. Then, too, it seemed like Mono had done all the talking, both to Lady Lemongrabs, the head couselor, and to me while Cake remained quiet. Still, every now and then, I could feel her eyes on me, steady, as if she was studying my features, committing me to memory, or maybe just trying to figure out if there was any part of me she recognized at all.

So Cake had a husband, I'd though, staring at them as we'd sat across from each other, Lady Lemongrabs shuffling papers between us. I wondered if they'd had a fancy wedding, with her in a big white dress, or maybe just eloped after she'd told him she had no family to speak of. Left to her own divices, this was the story I was sure she prefered - that she'd just sprouted, all on her own, neither connected nor indebated to anyone else at all.

"Thermostat's out in the hallway if you need to adjust it," Mono was saying now. "Personally, I like a bit of a chill to the air, but your sister prefers it to be swealtering. So even if you turn it down, she'll most likely jack it back up within moments."

Again he smiled, and I did the same. God, this was exhausting. I felt Cake shirft in the doorway, but again she didn't say anything.

"Oh!" Mono said, clapping his hands. "Almost forgot. The best part." He walked over to the window in the center of the wall, reaching down beneath the blind. It wasn't until he was stepping back and it was opening that I realised it was, in fact, a door. Within moments, I smell cold air. "Come check this out."

I fought the urge to look back at Cake again as I took a step, then one more, feeling my feet sink into the carpet, following him over the threshold onto a small balcony. He was standing by the railing, and I joined him, both of us looking down in the backyard. When I'd first seen if from the kitchen, I'd noticed just the basics: grass, a shed, the big patio with a grill at one end. Now, though, I could see there were rocks laid out in the grass in an oval shape, obviously deliberately, and again, I though of Stonehenge. What as it with these rich people, a druid fixation?

"It's gonna be a pond," Mono told me as if I'd said this out loud.

"A pond?" I said.

"Total ecosystem," he said. "Thirty-by-twenty and lined, all natural, with a waterfall. And fish. Cool, huh?"

Again, I felt him look at me, expectant. "Yeah," I said, because I was a guest here. "Sounds great."

He laughed. "Hear that Cake? _She_ doesn't think I'm crazy."

I looked down at the circle again, then back at my sister. She'd come into the room, although not that far, and still had her arms crossed over her chest as she stood there, watching us. For a moment, our eyes met, and I wondered how on earth I'd ended up here, the last place I knew either one of us wanted me to be.


	2. The Key

Then she opened her mouth to say something for the fisrt time scince we'd pulled to the driveway and all this, whatever it was, began. "Its cold," she said "You should come inside."

After the tour, the pond reveal, and a few more awkward moments, Mono and Cake finally left me alone to go downstairs and start dinner. It was barley five thirty, but already it was getting dark outside, the last of the light sinking behind the trees. I imagined the phone ringing in the empty yellow hous as Richard, my mother's boss at Commercial Courier, realized we were not just late but blowing off our shift. Later, the phone would probably ring again, followed by a car rolling up the drive, pausing by the front window. They'd wait for a few moments for me to come out, maybe even send someone to bang on the door. When I didn't, they'd turn arounnd hastily, spitting out the Honeycutts' neat grass and the mud beneath it from behind their back wheels.

And then what? The night would pass, without me there, the house settling into itself in the dark and quiet. I wondered if the Honeycutts had already been in to clean thing up, or if my clothes were still streched across the kitchen, ghostlike. Sitting there, in this strange place, it was like i could feel the house pulling me back to it, a visceral tug on my heart, the same way that, in the early days of the fall, I'd hoped it would do to my mom. But she hadn't come back, either. And now, if she did, I wouldn't be there.

Thinking this, I felt my stomach clench, a sudden panic settling over me, and stood up, walking to the balcony door and pushing it open, then stepping outside into the cold air. It was almost fully dark now, lights coming on in the nearby houses as people came home and settled in for the night in the places they called home. But standing there, with Cake's huge house rising up behind me and the vast yard beneath, I felt so small, as if to someone looking up I'd be unrecognizable, already lost.

Back inside, I opened up the duffel that had been delivered to me at Poplar House; Mono had brought it up from the car. It was a cheap bag, some promo my mom had gotten from work, the last thing I would have used to pack up my worldly possessions, not that this was what was in it anyway. Instead, it was mostly clothes I never wore-the good stuff had all been on the clothesline-as well as a few textbooks, a hairbrush, and two packs of cotton underwear I'd never sen in my life, courtesy of the state. I tried to imagine some person I'd never met before going through my room, picking these thing for me. How ballsy it was to just assume you could know, with one glance, the things another person could not live without. As if it was he same for everyone, that simple.

There a only one thing I really needed,and I knew enough to keep it close at all times. I my finger down the thin silver chain around my neck untill my fingers hit the familiar shape there at its center. All day long I'd been pressing it against my chest as I traced the outline I knew by heat; the rounded top, the smooth edge on one side, the series of jagged bumps on the other. The night befor, as I'd stood int the bathroom at the Poplar House, it had been all that was familiar, the one thing I focused on as I faced the mirror. I could not look at the dark hollows under my eyes, or the strange surroundings and how strange I felf in them. Instead, like now, I'd just lifted it up gently, reassured to see that the outline of that key remained on my skin, the one that fit the door to everything I'd left behind.

By the time Mono called up the stairs that dinner was ready, I'd decided to leave that night. It just made sense- there was no need to contaminate their pristine home any further, or the pretty bed in my room. Once everyone was asleep, I'd just grab my stuff, slip out the back door, and be on a main road within a few minutes. The first payphone I found, I'd call one of my friends to come and get me. I knew I couldn't stay at the yellow house- it would be the obvious place anyone would come looking- but at least if I got there, I could pick through my stuff for the things I needed. I wasn't stupid. I knew things had already changed, irrevocably and totally. But at least I could walk through the rooms and say goodbye, as well as try to leave some message behind, in case anyone came looking for me.

Then it was just a matter of laying low. After a few days of searching and paperwork, Cake and Mono would write me off as unsaveable, getting their brownie points for trying _and_ escaping relatively unscathed. That was what most people wanted anyway.

Now, I walked into the bathroom, my hairbrush in hand. I knew I looked rough, in result of two pretty much sleepless nights and then this long day, but the lighting in the bathroom, clearly designed to be flattering, made me look better than I actually did, which was unsettling. Mirrors, if nothing else, were supposed to be honest. I turned off the lights and brushed my hair in the dark.

Just before I left my room, I glanced down at my watch noting the time: 5:45. If Cake and Mono were asleep by, say, midnight at the latest, that meant I only had to endure six hours and fifteen minutes more. Knowing this gave me a sense of calm, of control, as well as the fortitude I needed to go downstairs to dinner and whatever else was waiting for me

Even with this wary attitude, however, I could never have been prepared for what I found at the bottom of the stairs. There, in the dark entryway, just before the arch that lead into the kitchen, I stepped in something wet. And, judging my the splash against my ankle, cold


	3. Beemo the Idiot

**(A/N)**Before we start the story I'd like to say I'm REALLY sorry about not posting for about two months. I've been REALLY busy with school and stuff so I'm thinking I'll post a new chapter either once or twice every month. Sorry If that's upsetting but this story has become REALLY hard to write. So to show I'm sorry I've given you an extra long chapter as an apology gift. And now for the disclaimer:**

**I DO NOT OWN ADVENTURE TIME OR LOCK AND KEY SO PLEASE DON'T SUE ME! **

**Lol (=^.^=) Now enjoy!****

"Woah," I said drawing my foot back and looking around me. Whatever the liquid was had now spread, propelled by my shoe, and I froze., so as not to send it any farther. Barley a half an hour in, and already I'd managed to violate Cake's perfect palace. I was looking around me, wondering what I could possibly find to wipe it up with - the tapestry on the nearby wall? something in the umbrella stand? - when the light clicked on over my head.

"Hey," Mono said, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. "I thought I heard something. Come on in, we're just about - " Suddenly he stopped talking, having spotted the puddle and my proximity to it. "Oh, shit," he said

"I'm sorry," I told him.

"Quick," he said, cutting me off and tossing me the dishtowel. "Get it up, would you? Before she - "

I cought the towel and was about to bend over when I realized it was too late. Cake was now standing in the archway behind him, peering around his shoulder. "Mono," she said, and he jumped, startled. "Is that—?"

"No," he said flatly. "It's not."

My sister, clearly not convinced, stepped around him and walked over for a closer

look. "It is," she said, turning back to look at her husband, who had slunk back farther into the kitchen. "It's pee."

"Cak—"

"It's pee, again," she said, whirling around to face him. "Isn't this why we put in that dog door?" Dog? I thought, although I supposed this was a relief, considering I'd been worried I was about to find out something really disturbing about my brother-in-law. "You have a dog?" I asked. Cake sighed in response.

"Mastery of a dog door takes time," Mono told her, grabbing a roll of paper towels

off a nearby counter and walking over to us. Cake stepped aside as he ripped off a few sheets, then squatted down, tossing them over the puddle and adjacent splashes. "You know that expression. You can't teach an old dog new tricks." Cake shook her head, then walked back into the kitchen without further comment.

Mono, still down on the floor, ripped off a few more paper towels and then dabbed at my shoe, glancing up at me. "Sorry about that," he said. "It's an issue."

I nodded, not sure what to say to this. So I just folded the dishtowel and followed

him into the kitchen, where he tossed the paper towels into a stainless-steel trash can. Cake was by the windows that looked out over the deck, setting the wide, white table there. I watched as she folded cloth napkins, setting one by each of three plates, before laying out silverware: fork, knife, spoon. There were also placemats, water glasses, and a big glass pitcher with sliced lemons floating in it. Like the rest of the house, it looked like somethingout of a magazine, too perfect to even be real.

Just as I thought this, I heard a loud, rattling sound. It was like a noise your grandfather would make, once he passed out in his recliner after dinner, but it was coming from behind me, in the laundry room. When I turned around, I saw the dog. Actually first, I saw everything else: the large bed, covered in what looked like sheepskin, the pile of toys—plastic rings, fake newspapers, rope bones—and, most noticeable of all, a stuffed orange chicken, sitting upright. Only once I'd processed all these accoutrements did I actually make out the dog itself, which was small, black and white, and lying on its back, eyes closed and feet in the air, snoring. Loudly.

"That's Beemo," Mono said to me as he pulled open the fridge. "Normally, he'd be up and greeting you. But our dog walker came for the first time today, and I think it wore him out. In fact, that's probably why he had that accident in the foyer. He's exhausted." "What would be out of the ordinary," Cake said, "is if he actually went outside." From the laundry room, I heard Beemo let out another loud snore. It sounded like his nasal passages were exploding.

"Let's just eat," Cake said. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down.

I waited for Mono to take his place at the head of the table before claiming the other chair. It wasn't until I was seated and got a whiff of the pot of spaghetti sauce to my left that I realized I was starving. Mono picked up Cake's plate, putting it over his own, then served her some spaghetti, sauce, and salad before passing it back to her. Then he gestured for mine, and did the same before filling his own plate. It was all so formal, and normal, that I felt strangely nervous, so much so that I found myself watching my sister, picking up my fork only when she did. Which was so weird, considering how long it had been since I'd taken any cues from Cake. Still, there had been a time when she had taught me everything, so maybe, like so much else, this was just instinct.

"So tomorrow," Mono said, his voice loud and cheerful, "we're going to get you

registered for school. Cake's got a meeting, so I'll be taking you over to my old stomping ground.

I glanced up. "I'm not going to Jackson?"

"Out of district," Cake replied, spearing a cucumber with her fork. "And even if we

got an exception, the commute is too long."

"But it's mid-semester," I said. I had a flash of my locker, the bio project I'd just dropped off the week before, all of it, like my stuff in the yellow house, just abandoned. I swallowed, taking a breath. "I can't just leave everything."

"It's okay," Mono said. "We'll get it all settled tomorrow."

"I don't mind a long bus ride," I said, ashamed at how tight my voice sounded, betraying the lump that had risen in my throat. So ridiculous that after everything that had happened, I was crying about school. "I can get up early, I'm used to it."

"Fionna." Cake leveled her eyes at me. "This is for the best. Kingdom Day is an excellent school."

"Kingdom Day?" I said. "Are you serious?"

"What's wrong with the Day?" Mono asked.

"Everything," I told him. He looked surprised, then hurt. Great. Now I was alienating

the one person who I actually had on my side in this house. "It's not a bad school," I told him. "It's just . . . I won't fit in with anyone there."

This was a massive understatement. For the last two years, I'd gone to Red Rock High, the biggest high school in the county. Overcrowded, underfunded, and with half your classes in trailers, just surviving a year there was considered a badge of honor, especially if you were like me and did not exactly run with the most academic of crowds. After moving around so much with my mom, Red Rock was the first place I'd spent consecutive years in a long time, so even if it was a total shithole, it was still familiar. Unlike Perkins Day, the elite private school known for its lacrosse team, stellar SAT scores, and the fact that the student parking lot featured more luxury automobiles than a European car dealership. The only contact we ever had with Kingdom Day kids was when they felt like slumming at parties. Even then, often their girls stayed in the car, engine running and radio on, cigarettes dangling out the window, too good to even come inside.

Just as I thought this, Mono suddenly pushed his chair back, jumping to his feet.

"Beemo!" he said. "Hold on! The dog door!"

But it was too late. Beemo, having at some point roused himself from his bed, was

already lifting his leg against the dishwasher. I tried to get a better look at him but only caught a fleeting glimpse before Mono bolted across the floor, grabbing him in mid-stream, and then carried him, still dripping, and chucked him out the small flap at the bottom of the French doors facing us. Then he looked at Cake and, seeing her stony expression, stepped outside himself, the door falling shut with a click behind him.

Cake put a hand to her head, closing her eyes, and I wondered if I should say

something. Before I could, though, she pushed back her chair and walked over to pick up the roll of paper towels, then disappeared behind the kitchen island, where I could hear her cleaning up what Beemo had left behind.

I knew I should probably offer to help. But sitting alone at the table, I was still bent out of shape about the idea of me at Kingdom Day. Like all it would take was dropping me in a fancy house and a fancy school and somehow I'd just be fixed, the same way Cake had clearly fixed herself when she'd left me and my mom behind all those years ago. But we were not the same, not then and especially not now.

I felt my stomach clench, and I reached up, pressing my fingers over the key around my neck. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of my watch, the overhead light glinting off the face, and felt myself relax. Five hours, fifteen minutes, I thought. Then I picked up my fork and finished my dinner.

Six hours and fifty long minutes later, I was beginning to worry that my brother-inlaw—The Nicest Guy in the World and Lover of Incontinent Creatures—was also an insomniac. Figuring they were the early-to-bed types, I'd gone up to my room to "go tosleep" at nine thirty. Sure enough, I heard Cake come up about forty minutes later, padding past my bedroom to her own, which was at the opposite end of the floor. Her light cut off at eleven, at which point I started counting down, waiting for Mono to join her. He didn't. In fact, if anything, there were more lights on downstairs now than there had been earlier,slanting across the backyard, even as the houses around us went dark, one by one.

Now, I'd been sitting there for almost four hours. I didn't want to turn a light on, since I was supposed to be long asleep, so I'd spent the time lying on the bed, my hands clasped on my stomach, staring at the ceiling and wondering what the hell Mono was doing. Truth be told, it wasn't that different from the nights a few weeks back, when the power had been cut off temporarily at the yellow house. At least there, though, I could smoke a bowl or drink a few beers to keep things interesting. Here, there was nothing but the dark, the heat cutting off and on at what—after timing them—I'd decided were random intervals, and coming up with possible explanations for the weird, shimmering light that was visible at the far end of the backyard. I was just narrowing it down to either aliens or some sort of celestial neo-suburban phenomenon when suddenly, the windows downstairs went dark. Finally, Mono was coming to bed.

I sat up, brushing my hair back with my fingers, and listened. Unlike the yellow house, which was so small and thin-walled you could hear someone rolling over in a bed two rooms away, Cake's palace was hard to monitor in terms of activity and movement. I walked over to my door, easing it open slightly. Distantly, I heard footsteps and a door opening and shutting. Perfect. He was in.

Reaching down, I grabbed my bag, then slowly drew the door open, stepping out into the hallway and sticking close to the wall until I got to the stairs. Downstairs in the foyer I got my first lucky break in days: the alarm wasn't set. Thank Glob.

I reached for the knob, then eased the door open, sliding my hand with the bag

through first. I was just about to step over the threshold when I heard the whistling.

It was cheery, and a tune I recognized—some jingle from a commercial. Detergent, maybe. I looked around me, wondering what kind of company I would have on a subdivision street at one thirty in the morning. Soon enough, I got my answer.

"Good boy, Beemo! Good boy!"

I froze. It was Mono. Now I could see him, coming up the other side of the street, with Beemo, who had just lifted his leg on a mailbox, walking in front of him on a leash. _Shit_, I thought, wondering whether he was far enough away not to see if I bolted in the opposite direction, dodging the streetlights. After a quick calculation, I decided to go around the house instead.

I could hear him whistling again as I vaulted off the front steps, then ran through the grass, dodging a sprinkler spigot and heading for the backyard. There, I headed for that light I'd been studying earlier, now hoping that it was aliens, or some kind of black hole, anything to get me away.

Instead, I found a fence. I tossed my bag over and was wondering what my chances were of following, not to mention what I'd find there, when I heard a thwacking noise from behind me. When I turned around, I saw Beemo emerging from his dog door.

At first, he was just sniffing the patio, his nose low to the ground, going in circles.

But then he suddenly stopped, his nose in the air. _Uh-oh_, I thought. I was already reachingup, grabbing the top of the fence and scrambling to try and pull myself over, when hestarted yapping and shot like a bullet right toward me.

Say what you will about little dogs, but they can move. In mere seconds, he'd

covered the huge yard between us and was at my feet, barking up at me as I dangled from the fence, my triceps and biceps already burning. "Shhh," I hissed at him, but of course this only made him bark more. Behind us, in the house, a light came on, and I could see Mono in the kitchen window, looking out.

I tried to pull myself up farther, working to get more leverage. I managed to get one elbow over, hoisting myself up over it enough to see that the source of the light I'd been watching was not otherworldly at all, but a swimming pool. It was big and lit up and, I noticed, occupied, a figure cutting through the water doing laps.

Meanwhile, Beemo was still yapping, and my bag was already in this strange person's yard, meaning I had little choice but to join it or risk being busted by Mono.

Straining, I pulled myself up so I was hanging over the fence, and tried to throw a leg to the other side. No luck.

"Beemo?" I heard Mono call out from the patio. "Whatcha got there, boy?"

I turned my head, looking back at him, wondering if he could see me. I figured I had about five seconds, if Beemo didn't shut up, before he headed out to see what his dog had treed. Or fenced. Another fifteen while he crossed the yard, then maybe a full minute before he'd put it all together.

"Hello?"

I was so busy doing all these calculations that I hadn't noticed that the person who'd been swimming laps had, at some point, stopped. Not only that, but he was now at the edge of the pool, looking up at me. It was hard to make out his features, but whoever it was was clearly male and sounded awfully friendly, considering the circumstances.

"Hi," I muttered back.

"Beemo?" Mono called out again, and this time, without even turning around, I could hear he was moving, coming closer. Unless I had a burst of superhuman strength or a black hole opened up and swallowed me whole, I needed a Plan B, and fast.

"Do you—?" the guy in the pool said, raising his voice to be heard over Beemo, who was still barking.

"No," I told him as I relaxed my grip. His face disappeared as I slid down my side of the fence, landing on my feet with mere seconds to spare before Mono ducked under the small row of trees at the edge of the yard and saw me.

"Fionna?" he said. "What are you doing out here?"

He looked so concerned that for a moment, I actually felt a pang of guilt. Like I'd let him down or something. Which was just ridiculous; we didn't even know each other. "Nothing," I said.

"Is everything okay?" He looked up at the fence, then back at me, as Beemo, who'd finally shut up, sniffed around his feet, making snorting noises.

"Yeah," I said. I was making a point to speak slowly. Calmly. Tone was everything. "I was just . . ."

Truth was, at that moment, I didn't know what I was planning to say. I was just hoping for some plausible excuse to pop out of my mouth, which, considering my luck so far, was admittedly kind of a long shot. Still, I was going to go for it. But before I could even open my mouth, there was a thunk from the other side of the fence, and a face appeared above us. It was the guy from the pool, who, in this better light, I could now see was about my age. His hair was black and wet, and there was a towel around his neck.

"Mono," he said. "Hey. What's up?"

Mono looked up at him. "Hey," he replied. To me he said, "So . . . you met Marshall?"

I shot a glance at the guy. Oh, well, I thought. It's better than what I had planned.

"Yeah." I nodded. "I was just—"

"She came to tell me my music was too loud," the guy—Marshall was it?—told Mono. Unlike me, he didn't seem to be straining in the least, holding himself over the top of the fence. I wondered if he was standing on something. To me he added, "Sorry about that. I crank it up so I can hear it under the water."

"Right," I said. "I just . . . I couldn't sleep."

At my feet, Beemo suddenly coughed, hacking up something. We all looked at him, and then Jamie said slowly, "Well . . . it's late. We've got an early day tomorrow, so..."

"Yeah. I should get to bed, too," Marshall said, reaching down to pull up one edge of his towel and wiping it across his face. He had to be on a deck chair or something, I thought. No one has that kind of upper-body strength. "Nice meeting you, Fionna."

"You, too," I replied.

He waved at Mono, then dropped out of sight. Mono looked at me for a moment, as if still trying to decipher what had happened. I tried not to flinch as he continued to study my face, only relaxing once he'd slid his hands in his pockets and started across the lawn, Beemo tagging along at his heels.

I'd just reached the line of trees, following him, when I heard a "Pssst!" from behind me. When I turned around, Marshall had pushed open part of the fence and was passing my bag through. "Might need this," he said.

Like I was supposed to be grateful. Unbelievable, I thought as I walked over, picking up the bag.

"So what's it to?"

I glanced up at him. He had his hand on the gate and had pulled on a dark-colored T-shirt, and his hair was starting to dry now, sticking up slightly. In the flickering light from the nearby pool I could finally make out his face enough to see that he was kind of cute, but in a rich-boy way, all jocky and smooth edges, not my type at all. "What?" I said.

"The key." He pointed to my neck. "What's it to?"

Mono was going into the house now, leaving the door open for me behind him. I reached up, twining my fingers around the chain hanging there. "Nothing," I told him.

I shifted my bag behind me, keeping it in my shadow as I headed across the lawn tothe back door._ So close_, I thought. _A shorter fence, a fatter dog, and everything would be different_. But wasn't that always the way. It's never something huge that changes everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you're busy focusing on the big picture.

When I got to the house, there was no sign of Mono or Beemo. Still, I figured it wasn't worth risking bringing my bag inside, and since the balcony was too high to toss it up, I decided to just stow it someplace and come back down for it in a couple of hours when the coast was clear. So I stuck it beside the grill, then slipped inside just as the shimmering lights from Marshall's pool cut off, leaving everything dark between his house and ours.

I didn't see Mono again as I climbed the stairs to my room. If I had, I wasn't sure what I would have said to him. Maybe he had fallen for my flimsy excuse, aided and abetted by a pool boy who happened to be in the right place at what, for me anyway, turned out to be the wrong time. It was possible he was just that gullible. Unlike my sister, who knew from disappearing and could spot a lie, even a good one, a mile off. She also probably would have happily provided the boost I needed up and over that fence, or at least pointed the way to the gate, if only to be rid of me, once and for all.

I waited a full hour to slip back downstairs. When I eased open my door, though, there was my bag, sitting right there at my feet. It seemed impossible I hadn't heard Mono leave it there, but he had. For some reason, seeing it made me feel the worst I had all day, ashamed in a way I couldn't even explain as I reached down, pulling it inside with me.

**(A/N)**Hey guys! How did you like the chapter? Do ya' like Marshall's character or do you think it should change? Please give me your feedback and leave a review! Ok, so here's the deal... you might not get a post from me in December from this story, BUT, I might have a new Christmas story up for ya' around that time *hint, hint*! So look out for that! Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone! BYE! (=^.^=)**


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